OK, I do realize that everyone is already sick of the term "cromnibus." I'm no exception -- I was sick of it the first time I heard it, in fact. But seeing as how we've only got one more week of talking about it (before it becomes an answer in political barroom trivia games of the future), I felt it was time to stretch the inane metaphor once again. Because today the subject on Capitol Hill is riders. That's right, the riders on the cromnibus.

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There are plenty of metaphors to choose from, as we all breathlessly watch the Republican Party make their latest attempt at semi-rational governing. Since the vehicle chosen for this Washington drama has been dubbed the "cromnibus," these metaphors all lean on the transportation theme. Will the wheels on the cromnibus go 'round and 'round? Are Tea Partiers waiting at the cromnibus stop, or will they just stop the cromnibus? Will the cromnibus even leave its House depot? Who will be forced to sit at the back of the cromnibus? Republicans are either on the cromnibus, or off the cromnibus (warning: due to its origins in the counterculture, Republicans may not get the reference in this last one).

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Added together, the differences from October to November for Obama's average monthly job approval and job disapproval ratings total a whopping 0.1 percent. That's pretty flat. Remarkably, this was during a month with several enormous political stories, from the midterm election results to immigration reform to Ferguson, Missouri. Before we get to all of that, let's take a look at the flatness of the chart for November.

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Yes, apparently that's a new word now: "cromnibus." Now, some, editorially-speaking, have been insisting on "CRomnibus" or "Cromnibus," but for the time being here, we've decided that it doesn't qualify for proper-name status in any way.

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It was fashionable, immediately after the election of Barack Obama, for some (mostly white) commentators to proclaim that America had entered a "post-racial" era. What they meant by this, loosely translated, was: "A black man has been elected president, so all our racial problems must be over now, right?"

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When Congress wouldn't pass a bill, the president had to act on immigration and deportation policy, to keep families intact -- a measure that affected 40 percent of the undocumented immigrants in the United States. The president in question was George H. W. Bush, and the year was 1990. Congress, at the time, was run by the opposition party. What did they do in response? They passed a bill, which Bush later signed.

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What walks like a duck and quacks like a duck but seems to have serious mobility problems?

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Senator Elizabeth Warren is about to become more influential in the Democratic Party. It was announced today that she will be joining the ranks of the Democrats' Senate leadership, albeit in a newly-created position that might be best called "Progressive Liaison." The position is seen as forming a new bridge between progressives and the party leadership, who have mostly been much more timid when it comes to issues with real populist appeal. Depending on what sort of leadership role Warren carves out for herself, this could be very good news.

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[Program Note: Since today is a holiday, I am taking the day off. Below is what I wrote last year for Veterans' Day, so the calendar references are a bit out of date. This may be the first time I've ever re-run a re-run column, since last year's column actually contained within it [...]

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Politico has an interesting article up which details the efforts in the liberal political donor camp to come up with something to combat the influence of the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC. The new liberal counterpart will be named the State Innovation Exchange, or "SiX." Creative capitalization seems to be their first innovation.

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